Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I could have been wild and I could have been free

But nature played this trick on me.

- The Smiths, Pretty Girls Make Graves

APPROX 10,000 BCE

The hunger within the belly of the bear behind Rogh was deep, but the pits of her own were enough to push her forwards as she crawled through the wilderness with two other women and a man from their settlement, their eyes wary as the three of them crept through the prickly greens above them, the sky grey and tinged with the threat of bolts of light striking down upon them at any given minute. But it was no concern of theirs- rather, the lack of food back at the shelter was enough to push them forwards in their pursuit. The children were going hungry, the inhabitants had begun to enter into conflict, and Rogh hadn't bled in a few moons. The other three were unsteady in their footing- all hunters to some extent, but they had been more accustomed to gathering, with the male's foot already having been scratched up and mauled by bark a few steps earlier. Still, Rogh was enough for the four of them and, indeed, the rest of the village- her eyes trained themselves around the area, surveying any trails of prey and any signs of threat--

Her train of thought abruptly came to a halt as she felt strong hands against her back as she fell forwards into the greenery ahead, her eyes widening as she prepared herself to yell, until she shook her head to keep herself in line, just like she always had. After all, above all she'd always felt her purpose was to eat, hunt, repeat. And it was built in, too- her legs lacked the softness needed to attract, but rather the toned nature suitable to thrash about beneath a mammoth, or run away from it in worst-case scenarios. It didn't matter either way, she thought- she was here for a good time, not a long one. The latter itself became more apparent to her a few moments later, as she began to hear the wretched screams of her peers behind her in the bushes, the roar of the bear sending adrenaline coursing around her body as she gasped, her eyes filled with a mixture of excitement and horror as she scrambled away on her slightly ragged wool shoes, her arms flailing as lightning struck down upon the ground around her like a rain of death until she made her way to a tree.  

Her hand was firm- or at least to an extent, trembling ever so slightly against the sodden bark as the rain poured down against the foliage above her, her legs bruising as she began climbing up while the dirt and wear of the tree slipped beneath her fingernails. She didn't care either, as a smile began to creep onto her face at first hesitantly, and then maniacally as she giggled to herself with delight at being out of the way of the bear that was, unbeknownst to her out of the forest, its stomach filled to the brim with her friends. That was, until the clap of lightning hit.

People say that you see lightning first before you hear it, but neither applied to Rohr in the moment as her body tensed up immediately, her innards seemingly alight as she let out something choked between a scream and a laugh, her hands begging to be freed from the tree but still defiantly staying in position as her hair nearly stood on end, her eyes watering up only a little before they finally shut forever.

Or at least physically, until she found herself standing up from the ground, only now realising that the bark no longer went into her fingernails, but rather her entire hand didn't go into the tree at all. After returning to their grounds with an air of shame the others could no longer see, she paced around as her nerves stood on end, her footsteps hesitant and unsteady as she found her way back to their settlement, a buzz overwhelming the others as one began the painting, and the others began the burial as they set up the necessary grounds for her body, and equipment to retrieve it. She was, after all, one of the only proficient hunters left-- perhaps it would've been better if she took the initiative to teach others in the village, or to perhaps have had some children of her own to inherit her own tactile strengths, or at least to have had some positive impact in the preservation of their scavenging bands. 

Neither options seemed like particularly worthy regrets, however. Rather, Rogh was mildly annoyed that dying in combat with a bear would a little less embarrassing to read aloud during the burial than being hit by lightning on a tree.

"Prawn go dooka-dooka. Okay?" 

It was a Saturday morning at Button House, and both Robin and the late Julie Fawcett MP were playing a game of chess, just as they had done before for the past thirty-so years. Neither had gotten bored yet- after all, despite the initial shocks of their new ghostly states, it was rather refreshing for the two of them to not have to constantly be on the hunt, whether that was a wild boar for Robin or the newest attractive secretary for Julie. 

"Yes, alright then," the older (physically, not historically) woman replied, before squeezing her eyes shut and gasping loudly as she pushed forward a pawn by two squares. "You know, it's funny- now that we're, you know, like this, you'd think that I'd be a little more hesitant about what I say. You know, seeing as we've all been stuck in the same house for God knows how long- and grudges could stick. But I don't know, being like this has made me a little more free in what I say, or at least without worrying about the effect it'll have."

"That because you not need to lie to people for vote anymore," Robin replied, completely deadpan. "But also because, I dunno, we all close, you know? House of Common not good friend that don't judge. We are."

Julie hummed to herself. "Well, you make a point. But it's easy enough for you to say- after all, from the looks of it you probably didn't have many words to say back then at all," she replied, adjusting her collar with a cheeky grin. Robin shrugged. "No word at all."

The other woman's jaw dropped. "Wait-- you were all silent? The whole time?"

"No. We had language. More complicated than English, Francais, et cete-whatever-word-is. Never silent. But quiet, yes." 

"Well, goodness, can't imagine how that'd turn out for me," Julie laughed, leaning in as though the chessboard, or even their entire game they'd been playing the past twenty minutes was never there. "Well, go on. What was that like?"

The cold set a chill upon Rogh’s nose, her lips quivering as another woman approached her, laden with thick furs and her cheeks rosy and well fed. Rogh wasn’t jealous, though. 

Probably.

Grunting, she nodded to the other woman’s furs, their plush textures and drab hues calling to Rogh through the cold and whispering to her to abandon her morals in pursuit of it. She knew it wasn’t right- the other woman could’ve been a mother, possibly even bearing another at that very moment. No- her cheeks were rosy- surely her group was well fed, happy- people who could look after her in an instant if anything went wrong, and wouldn’t face too much of a loss in a worst case scenario. After all, the pregnant women from her own village seemed deteriorated, in pain- this woman seemed entirely content with a warm smile across her face. A telling cause for her lack of children, both in existence or ready for it. 

The other woman’s eyes settled upon the rock in Rogh’s hand, its drab texture coming to a sharpened point at the tip where it caught the light of the snow, a fine jewel with the ability to spill garnets from human skin. She looked up at Rogh, uncertain as to whether the trade was truly worth it- in return, Rogh simply poked at her skin before gasping from the sudden impact, a trickle of blood spilling slowly down her thumb in a small amount as she pulled away the tool, the other woman staring in terror and curiosity as she licked at the wound to stop the bleeding. The other woman nodded, and reached for the tool, before her hand was stopped in place by Rogh. She beckoned for the furs, and after a few moments of the woman struggling out of it, she passed it back to Rogh with a smile. 

“Hat,” she said with a smile, pointing at herself with an arm now trembling violently from the cold as she began to slowly realise the nature of her mistake.

Rogh slipped on the furs immediately without hesitation, her hands coursing through the fur as she bared her teeth in a wicked grin, wiping the blood off the rock as she passed it back to the woman she had made a fool out of.

”Rogh.”

“It’s a bit cruel, isn’t it? A pregnant woman, only twenty something. Makes you think, really,” the decapitated head said next to Robin, her hair spilling across the table as she looked at the Neanderthal woman with furrowed eyebrows. The two never particularly spoke much- after all, despite being the two oldest ghosts on the estate, the gap of tens of thousands of years between the two didn’t do much to help. Still, they were confidantes when the two were alone together, especially if it came with the promise of the Tudor having her head fixed to her wandering body again.

”Didn’t know,” Robin grunted, her body curled up a little as she sat on the table next to the head, her knees in her arm as the guilt of feeling those furs against her skin set in, the knowledge that those furs could’ve helped protect young ones, could’ve brought smiles to others than her own. She wondered if her own remains would ever be found on a documentary, too— what would they say about the furs? “Wolf pelts valiantly hunted at the hands of the woman buried”- it was too horrible to be true. “Seemed too happy.”

”Seemed too happy to have a partner back at home?”

Robin looked at the other woman. “Sure.”

”Makes sense. Yeah, no, I’ll drink to that. Well, if I could hold the glass. Because, well. You know,” she replied, before looking out of the window for a moment, then a few seconds, then a whole five minutes until calloused hands squeezed her cheeks as she left the cold surface of the table. 

“Because you ghost?”

”Worse.”

“Alright. I take back to body now.”

Chapter Text

Girl afraid,

Where do his intentions lay?

Or does he even have any?

- The Smiths, Girl Afraid

1543

The day Helen Bone met her husband was, arguably, one of the best days of her life- she'd been taken out across the grounds of Bone Hall, was fitted with a new dress lined with blackwork and even took a few moments outside the gates to soak in the fresh air of the countryside beyond their own land until the sun set- her last moments of unbridled freedom as far as she'd know for a while.

Then, she went to meet her husband.

"Well, it's all a matter of convenience, you see," her father said to the French gentleman, the light pouring in through the door as the other more spindly man stood there, his son lingering by his side with a reluctant expression in his eyes. "It's good for both of our families, this union. But I understand that you may have some qualms about the accommodation, given-- er, you know."

Qualms was an understatement, given the look on the other boy's face. It wasn't hatred as such- rather, he was simply looking back at her with the same sullen expression, a tinge of worry visible in the glint of his eyes as his father pushed him forward by the back, his body firm, tense and reluctant. 

"Simon. Say hello to the pretty lady. Your wife." 

The word--no, its full phrasing sent shivers up Helen's spine, simply the mere thought of being his after only a moment's passing of being in the same room. After all, she hadn't even known his name- just that he was young, French and from a noble family on the poorer side, hence why he was here in gloomy England and she wasn't in idyllic France.

The laugh of her father boomed as he pulled her into his chest with a singular arm, as though she was a ragdoll passed to and fro. "Let's not jump ahead quite so fast. But yes, indeed. Helen, let's not be too shy-- go on, now."

After a brief moment of hesitation, Helen offered Simon her hand.

He never got around to reciprocating that singular gesture until their vows had been sealed, the crisp leaves falling down against the dirt between the two's knees as the priest removed the veils from their heads, his hands pale and trembling as he looked into her eyes with an expression only defined as fear, his bottom lip trembling and his brows furrowed-- he was to become a man on his wedding day, and yet he was still the same scared boy from France, dragged out of his room and onto a ship with the promise and threat of him and his family's lives being changed forever. The ceremony had been arranged for autumn- the period in which the youthful flora of the summer died out, but was rather replaced with its fauna seeking hibernation as a measure against death in the harsh English cold. 

The maids had always told Helen that they'd cried on their wedding days with soft smiles on their faces and yearning in their eyes- so why did it feel so horrible now? Regardless, she told herself the same lie, that this had been her life's purpose for the past 12 years over and over again up until her, Simon and the priest made their way to his new chambers. It was an unused room, one which she had never pried into before in fear of its cold atmosphere, the spiders crawling over the walls enough to have put her off it as a child. Now, a new fear of hers was to be found in that very room. The two climbed into the bed, as the priest began to bless each and every corner of its linen, the other boy looking away with an expression somewhere between nervousness and horror. She found her pinkie finger hooked around his- he simply allowed it, his eyes shut and his cheeks pink up until the priest sighed and got up. 

"It is blessed," the man said dryly as he put away his rosary. "I bid goodnight to you both: and pray, young lady, go easy on your husband- he does not possess the same inclinities as the female hunger." With a smirk on his face, he got up and made his way to the door, before nodding to the two and shutting the door firmly. 

The two lay there for a moment in silence, half a meter between the two of them both in distance and tension as they both stared at the crimson curtains surrounding the bed, starkly refusing to look at the other.

"Est-ce vrai? Que les femmes tombent terriblement malades si elles ne le font pas..." he began in a quiet and solemn voice, before turning to look at her. "Bon tu sais. C'est ce que le curé m'a dit chez moi. À propos du moment où nous ferions... ça." Helen winced, the weight of being unable to understand his language finally hitting her. Still, human expressions were human expressions- and from the way his words sounded, they were somewhere between terror and disgust.

"I... I'm sorry, but I don't know French, really."

Simon winced, furrowing his eyebrows. "Do you want to, um. M- no- have- no, do it," he mumbled, unsteady with his grasp of English verbs. Helen got the hint nonetheless, her response simply being a string of mumbles and stutters as she realised he was offering her a choice in this.

"Good," he interrupted. "I feel the same. Thank you." Sighing, he got up on the bed before sitting cross-legged across from where she lay, as though none of this was happening and the two were simply young friends at a sleepover of sorts as he gestured tiredly for her to do the same. 

"W... what's it like? In France?" Helen mumbled, unsure of what to say to her new husband.

"Jol-" he began in French, before shaking his head. "Nice. It's nice. Nice....". He paused for a moment, before pushing away the curtain surrounding them to pry a quick view out of the window outside facing the drab countryside. "Nice views. Better than England." 

Helen laughed, making sure to cover her mouth as she maintained and tightened one fistful of her skirt to keep her nerves at bay. "I suppose I'll have to show you what this area has to offer, then. There's a beautiful river, just by the Great Park. Yes, I'll show you that then. That'd be nice, right?"

Simon didn't reply, simply looking out through the curtain in silence, a handful of it bundled in his fist just as hers was buried in her skirt.

"Won't you ask me any questions, then?" she asked. Still, her efforts were to no avail as he continued to peer through, until he looked back slowly at her with an unreadable yet grave expression, a tear forming at the corner of his eye. 

Helen looked down- this was what the past twelve years had prepared me for, she thought. Perhaps it was simply fresh woes hours after the altar, but she knew that she wouldn't let her or her new husband be lonely- not now, not in a few years and certainly not until death did them part. She knew he was reluctant, and he knew she was afraid-- but if there was a God, she knew He wouldn't leave her alone.

It was midday, and Helen was still waiting for somebody to retrieve her head from the staircase to the east wing. You'd think they'd get the hint by now, she thought, their voices from upstairs echoing against the floors and into her ears, muffled by the thick waves of her hair that spilled over the steps. 

"Guys? Anyone?" she mumbled, her cheek flat against the carpet. However, right as she was about to give up hope and drift off to sleep a pair of rapid footsteps approached her from above, before two shaking hands scooped her up roughly and raised her to the sky. 

"OhHelenyouabsolutelyMUSTtellmeaboutyourloveliferightnowimmediatelypleasepleasepleasepleasePLEASE" Kit squealed quickly, his words forming a nonstop chain as Helen squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to unscramble them in her head. 

"Oh, um, of course. Although, if you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason for that...?" she asked, laughing awkwardly as the boy giggled to himself with excitement. It was a difficult topic, but she didn't mind- after all, the Georgian nobleman had become something of an endearing figure to her, and it helped that he was always willing to relocate her body. 

"Well, Alison just showed us her new DVD she bought of The Other Boleyn Girl the other day, and firstly ohmygosh Natalie Portman is so amazing, but more importantly the whole film was about people like you, you know. The ladies all had those fabulous hat thingies that you wear, no clue what they're called and oh my gosh sidenote we NEED to watch it together, but I've been so excited by the way the men talk to the women and how everyone did romance in those days that I have to hear about how it was for you! Oh my gosh, you didn't have a sister, did you?" Kit gasped, nearly placing his hands over his mouth before remembering he had an entire human head in his hold. 

Helen laughed at the boy's excitement and naïvety, although she couldn't help but feel a pang of worry at the bottom of wherever her heart was at the thought of disappointing Kit with its mostly boring details. "I'll tell, but um... You won't mind that it's a little boring, right?"

Kit giggled and shook his head. "No, no, not at all- nothing you'll say will bore me, just go on!"

Helen sighed with a smile. "Right-ho."

"Tu as ruiné ma vie," Simon murmured one Sunday afternoon in the study, looking out of the window as he always did instead of into the eyes of his wife. "Mais j'ai aussi ruiné le vôtre." 

"I didn't say anything," Helen laughed awkwardly, smiling after her husband as she fiddled with the corner of her dress. It was utter torture as always, these forced periods of companionship every day. After all, they usually minded their own businesses, to the point that they didn't even sleep in the same bed. And that was fine by her, at least to an extent, although she couldn't deny that the biting cold of the night often left her yearning for something more than the thin duvets. But it was fine, as always- if Simon was fine, then so was she.

"Um, Simon. I don't mean to be a nagging wife at all, but have you ever considered speaking to me in, um... English?" she mumbled. After all, he was proficient to an extent, with the snippets she had heard of him speaking with other noblemen at dinner parties often leaving her yearning for him to address her with the same words as opposed to silence. 

"It's an ugly language," he replied bluntly. 

"Which I get completely, of course. But, you know, it's just a slight concern for me seeing as I've heard you willingly speaking it to others."

"'Willingly' is a strong word," he said flatly. "You are my wife, yes? It is not good idea to pretend to be someone else with someone I trust. I am forced to talk to those men. With you, I am not. Good thing, yes?" Trust is a strong word, she thought. She knew that neither of them loved the other- did he not even like her at all?

"Yeah, no, of course. Totally, I get it," she replied, her eyes wide and apologetic until she smiled. "Maybe I could learn a little French, then? Even out the scores, you know." 

Simon simply glared back emotionlessly in response before looking back out of the window. She sighed- at least it was worth a try.

"Égaliser le score. What you just say, but in French. Si vous voulez apprendre un peu de français." 

A smile spread itself across Helen's face as she turned back to face her husband, getting up as she sat directly next to him without any resistance from him. "Si vous voulez apprendre un peu de français."

"Non. Je veux apprendre un peu de français."

"Je veux apprendre un peu de français," she parroted, before giggling. "Is there anything else I should know, monsieur?"

Simon paused for a moment as he thought to himself of something to teach her to say- perhaps something sweet, something funny, something that he could pull out to show there was more to the cold demeanour he constantly subjected her to. Unfortunately, all roads led south. 

“Je me mens sur le fait d'être heureux dans ce mariage,” he said quietly. “For you only to say. Say it.”

“Je me mens sur le fait d'être heureux dans ce mariage,” she replied quickly, a smile on her face. She recognised that last word, but she knew it surely couldn’t have had any connections to the word she had in mind in English given his temperament. And, after all, she knew she didn’t hold any positive feelings on the matter either.

Simon sighed. “Oui. Yes. I need alone time now. I will leave you here.” As he got up, Helen couldn’t deny the strange sense of disappointment within her at his departure as he dragged his eyes away from the window and made his way to the door.

”Um, Simon? Is there any chance I’d maybe get to have one of your little French lessons again someday?”

He offered her one of his rare smiles. “Nous verrons.”

“Did you ever like reading at all while you were alive, Helen?” a voice called from above her, as Theodosia Thorne slipped past the many shelves of the library while beckoning down to the decapitated head on the carpet with her voice. 

“Not particularly,” she replied, furrowing her eyebrows as she strained to think back to the last book she read.

Theodosia’s jaw dropped as she placed a hand firmly against her chest for dramatic effect. “By God’s word! No, no- you lived in the age of Shakespeare!” she said, failing to acknowledge that Helen had died around 20 years before he even picked up a quill. “Surely you must’ve read one of the greats!”

”Hm? Yeah, sure. Owned a first edition copy of the Magna Carta, actually,” she began as Theodosia stared at her with wonder, unaware of the older woman’s sarcasm. “Was signed by the big man John himself. I’d bet that we even had some limited edition copies of How to Hunt A Mammoth by one of Robin’s ancestors, but I can’t be too sure.”

”Oh, damn you!” Theodosia cried as she picked up Helen’s head off the floor and placed it atop her lap, the silk of her skirt flowing from the high waistline cradling her face. “Nothing at all?”

Helen sighed. “Well, I wasn’t particularly keen. But my husband was. He had a book club, you see…

…where we discuss books. Just us, every Friday. I saw we have a room here. Empty. So I invited them here,” Simon explained to a nervous Helen, as a group of far older men lingered in the empty study, surrounding an oblong table covered from head to toe with papers as they watched her and her husband by the doorway. 

“Ah. I see. And you’re happy?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed as she folded her arms.

”…Very,” he replied flatly, before nearly closing the door. “Thank you, Helen.” 

Making his way back into the room, Simon sat himself with the others before reshuffling the pages back onto their previous positions containing extensive details into their plot. 

“Tricked the missus then, eh?” one of them laughed, his voice booming across the room and making it a mystery how they’d kept this plot secret for so long. “Didn’t seem like too much effort. Your wife’s not exactly known for her smarts around here!” he laughed, before being shushed immediately by Simon. 

“She is a kind woman,” he replied defiantly. “She is not foolish, only naïve. She did not get the chance to be with the outside world after we married. Either way, the only woman we should be focused on here is the demon on the throne. Come.” 

From outside the room, Helen sunk against the wall as she sighed and fidgeted with her dress hem, pressing her ear against the door in hopes of a sliver of sound to pass through for her to hear their conversations. She wondered why he didn’t include her- after all, she was far from illiterate, and she had a stronger grasp of the country’s literature than he. Either way, it didn’t matter too much to her- after all, if he was content then so was she. Still, the weight of the sentiment only hit her, and was proven false when she picked up a stray piece of parchment which slipped from the copy of a book in Simon’s trembling hands and scanned through his scrawl, with the words ‘Elizabeth’, ‘Catholic’ and a final ‘kill’ catching her eyes and sending shivers down her spine. As she stepped back in horror, her eyebrows furrowed as she weighed out the potential consequences of his words- after all, she wanted to believe it was all some kind of elaborate inside joke involving the assassination of the Queen of England, but the threat of life or death or even  being outright beheaded or hung was enough to make her hands tremble and drop the page.

And if she thought that was bad enough, the weight of the situation truly kicked in as she felt the arms of dozens of men against her while pulling her through the entrance of Bone Hall, her husband urging her to come through with her as, for the first time in her life his hand was upon hers out of pure desperation and concern for her life. And yet she let go, pulling away immediately with tears in her eyes as she begged him to go, to find a new life and his own real love in a country where everyone could understand him by his own tongue. And he kissed her voluntarily for the first time, planting it upon her cold cheek as he looked up at her with a solemn expression, before being dragged away by the others as the knights steadily approached. 

Helen panicked. In the heat of the moment, she began reaching for random pots, pans, anything that could apply blunt force without directly killing a man. Still, their footsteps were steadily approaching, and unless she made a move quickly she knew her head was ready for the chopping board. Making her way to the fireplace, she began climbing up until her hands and feet slipped into individual nooks and crannies, the pearls along her deep red cap catching the warm light outside as she pulled her crimson dress into bundles to avoid any soot brushing against it. After all, she knew she’d survive to be able to wear that dress in public one more time. She knew it, and her intuition seemingly came into fruition as she heard footsteps leaving the wing she was in, and more specifically the words of some higher-up ordering the men to move out.

With a relieved smile on her face she sighed, before beginning to loosen herself from her hiding spot and crawling out from the fireplace, a pair of double-edged blades hanging above as a testament to her bravery. Still, as she exhaled with relief, she planted two form and courageous knocks to the wooden surface above her before hearing the faint sound of metal screeching against hinges, until—

“— Helen de Brimeu was brutally beheaded by her own husband- Simon, Chevalier de Brimeu, in an attempt to pass off her own elaborate plot as his own. This same shameless claiming was apparent later down the line, more notably when he himself was executed as he pleaded that his wife was innocent and had no doing in the plot, but rather it was the work of his own hands,” the woman in the documentary explained, as Helen’s interest was piqued by the details of her apparent murder at the hands of her husband.

”Terrible swordsman, he was. Glad to see that he picked up some skills right at the last minute,” she laughed, as the others stared at her completely dumbfounded from the details of her life and death as explained on the television. Alison turned off the television, and for a moment the horrors of the endless silence of her marriage hit her again as the others stared at her head in a circle, while the Captain even saluted her from the side, her head held up high in respect. 

“Honestly, if you’re going to go through all that effort to signal respect, you could possibly put me back on my body so I could give you all a proper thank you.” Thankfully, the sole Stuart ghost on the estate came to her rescue, as Marion immediately picked up her head and rushed off in pursuit of her body, his soot-coated fingers buried in her thick hair until he finally located her body, planting her head down firmly until it fixed on. He peered at where the two separated. 

“Yes, it be too clean for the act of an unskilled swordsman, that. Moreover the act of foolishness,” he began, until Helen looked at him with a deadpan expression. “I joke, I joke. And I apologises for my previous comments, those that compared the way ye was passed on with mine without knowing the full tale.”

”No, no, it’s completely fine. But I will say that I haven’t a clue about it, apart from… well, you know.”

Marion looked away, a lock of straw-like hair falling over his eyes from the rest of his long mane behind. “Do ye think the others will be alright with it?”

”It’s moreover a question of whether you’d be alright with it, honestly. Do as you please.”

”Do as I pleases…. do as I pleases…” he mumbled, before smiling and taking Helen’s hand. “I’ll think it over then, I will!” he exclaimed before shaking on the taller woman’s hand once, then twice, then enough times with enough force for her head to have begun to lose contact with the rest of her body by the time he’d left until….

”Oi!” she shouted after him, her head back on the floor again as her body walked into a wall. “What happened to all that sympathy? Honestly…” 

Regardless, no matter how many times she’d complain about being left behind she’d never quite mind at all, not now that she’d seen the worst of it while alive. After all, things were better now like this- yes, she was often alone, and yes, she was often mildly forgotten.

But God forbid that she’d ever be lonely in this house.